Germany beats Sweden 3-0

Updated: 25 February 2007 10:36 IST

Germany beat Sweden 3-0 in a friendly on Wednesday at Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Reported by Indo-Asian News Service

Read Time: 2 mins

Gelsenkirchen, Germany:

The coaching transition from Juergen Klinsmann to Joachim Loew went more then smoothly for Germany when it trounced Sweden 3-0 on Wednesday in a friendly.
Miroslav Klose scored two goals and Bernd Schneider added another for Germany, which beat Sweden 2-0 in the second round of the World Cup, scoring both goals inside the first 12 minutes.
This time, it had an even better start - it scored twice in the first eight minutes.
Schneider used a perfect pass behind the Swedish defense from Tim Borowski to knock the ball under the bar. It was Schneider's second goal in 72 games for Germany. Borowski was playing instead of captain Michael Ballack, who has a hip injury.
The second goal came from Klose, who shook off two Swedish defenders and used the outside of his boot to beat Rami Shaaban in the Swedish goal.
Klose rose to head in a sharp cross from Bastian Schweinsteiger and crown Germany's total dominance in the first half.
Loew spent two years as assistant to Klinsmann, before taking the top job when Klinsmann stepped after down after leading Germany to third place at the World Cup.
Although injuries forced Loew to make several changes from the World Cup starting 11, Germany lost none of its determination to play a fast, attacking game introduced by Klinsmann.
Loew has pledged to continue the style that created a euphoria among its fans during the World Cup.
His debut was also a successful warmup for Germany's first 2008 European Championship qualifying match against Ireland on September 2 in Stuttgart.
At the start of the second half, Loew gave international debuts to defenders Malik Fathi and Manuel Friedrich.
Both teams made many substitutions in the second half and the game dropped in quality.
A capacity crowd of 53,000 watched the game under the closed roof of the Schalke stadium because of rain.